Why a Discovery Process is Crucial
Written by Kevin Bray and Jesh Nanthakumar
In the early meetings with a client prospect, one thing always seems to happen for our design team and strategists — we get excited. We are lucky enough to see so many interesting businesses, both established and emerging, that every new potential client who walks into our virtual office reminds us of something we’ve wanted to work on. Or an idea we’ve had. Whether it’s a new business model, an alternative structure to an app experience or a creative experience leveraging new technologies, it’s virtually never a challenge for us to fall in love and become passionate.
From the client’s perspective, they’ve approached us because they want to do something different, something unique, something beautiful, with a boutique firm. They have operational plans they need to meet and program roadmaps to hit, but they’ve chosen Milkinside with the hope of doing something different.
What comes next? How do we link our passion with the client’s concrete goals, but still ensure that we don’t limit ourselves in the early stages? In short, how do we achieve it all?
This is often the most essential part of the plan — the discovery process.
What is a discovery process?
The design discovery process exists to turn idea(s) into a manageable feature checklist. More importantly, it creates space to find a design narrative. What makes the product relevant to consumers? What is the story, and how will it resonate with the target market? What is the connective emotional thread throughout the design?
If it is just a set of features that looks like something else in the market, we have a problem.
One of the major pieces of value to engaging with an agency like Milkinside is that we are fortunate enough to see many products and services across many industries. This gives us a broad set of reference material to draw from. And it’s absolutely crucial that we not only draw on this in the early stages of an engagement, but properly communicate to our clients why this is ultimately so beneficial to them.
If we want to co-create something that feels new, that feels different, that we can both be proud of, we must lean on the client’s incredible subject matter and operational expertise, and our ability to look at a set of goals with fresh eyes, no biases and inspiration from other industries. Combined, this can be a superpower.
This is what discovery allows.
Everyone has a discovery process
Think of your discovery process as research, repackaged as a variety of different terms, depending on the discipline. Writers create characters. Doctors take vitals. Lawyers accumulate facts.
It really is no different for a creative agency such as ours.
The challenge behind discovery is creating a focused set of tasks that allow for research, ideation, creativity and synthesis, without materially impacting the ultimate set of deliverables. This can be a communication challenge with clients as humans are emotionally, and financially, invested in outcomes. Understandably.
While we don’t necessarily follow the same process in each instance, we do find it necessary to be disciplined about timeboxing this phase of a project. 1 week is nowhere near enough time, and 3 months is likely too long. We have seen ultimate outcomes suffer when we’ve stopped short of pushing on a large idea in the interest of an arbitrary deadline. It’s possible to both relentlessly move forward towards completion and also be forgiving when new discoveries emerge.
Explaining discovery to clients and partners
If the discovery process is so important, then why do some clients minimize its value?
Well, in short, most of our potential clients are very smart. They know their businesses inside and out, have vast amounts of research, user testing, marketing heft and operational excellence. They also have deadlines that must be hit, and often the answer to “when do you need it” is “yesterday.”
So how can the value of this stage best be communicated?
The discovery process provides its own value and produces its own assets, so it must be described as such. It provides our team with high-level UX and visual design direction, experience pillars, benchmark analysis and general creative inspiration. Not only will it result in higher quality work, but it speeds up the wireframing process considerably because our designers are less likely to get stuck along the way.
Perhaps more importantly, it helps build trust between our firm and our client partners. It fosters empathy from both sides, and allows us to synthesize and integrate their best thinking. When a client truly understands the rationale, the creative process becomes a collaborative one.
In many ways, discovery is an exercise in working backwards. Ultimately, where do we want to be? When the humans (not users) are experiencing this product months or years from now, what emotions will they be feeling? Will we bring joy and delight to their lives? Now, what do we need to do in order to get there? What do we think will not only satisfy their needs, but create vocal advocates?
This is what a proper discovery process can achieve. Cross-pollination between agency and client, trust and passion between the cross-functional team and a shared purpose as a powerful emotional foundation for the ultimate product. Investing time in this set of activities will always make the difference between a standard and magical outcome.
***
Milkinside is an award-winning global creative agency intent on making the future of technology beautiful. Our talented and versatile team believes that design is what transforms a technology into a product and that storytelling should be at the center of any user experience. We are headquartered in San Francisco but always looking to hire the most talented creative professionals, wherever you live. If that describes you, please visit us at www.milkinside.com.
